If you’ve read the About page you’ll know I used to have the domain alisonboston.com. I opened it while living in Budapest, and in the blog section posted a fair bit about Hungarian artists. Although the domain has been hijacked and currently being used to post information about Japan – in Japanese – (bizarre choice of domain names for Japanese information!) some posts are stored on the Wayback machine. I’d like to import those posts to this blog, but unfortunately importing from the Wayback Machine isn’t yet an option available with WordPress, so for now, I’ll try to find choice posts to bring forward and post here. Perhaps they should be pages rather than posts? Maybe I need some UX advice?
Meanwhile, I’ll post them as posts. Please note, the links in this post take you to the Wayback machine.

Kiss Erzsi is a memorable artist from my time in Budapest, and her performances influence mine, so I’d like to share this with you.

The more I hear – and see – of Erzsi Kissthe more admiration and respect I have for her as an artist. This is a big step for one who did not like her the first time I heard her. That was during Budapest’s French festival along the banks of the Duna. Last year, or the year before? My how time flies when you are having fun.

I still didn’t like her when I heard her about a year later at Godor Klub. I felt she had a lot of technique, but no connection with me as an audience member and I could not figure why people think she is so special. I spoke with arts programmers who told me she used to do throat singing, and this show with the band was a later evolution in her career. Then I learned that she comes from a theatre background and I started to view her differently.

Oh no, not with her vocal acrobatics used to deliver a nonsense language she has invented to front her band – but rather with a powerful a capella section delivered in the middle of the program when the musicians left the stage and she was joined with 3 other women vocalists (two of them actresses who sing, while the third is Linda Kovacs, who is a regular member of her band and has her own band now).

These four women breathed and sighed, hummed and chanted rhythmically and it was a joy to watch and hear in a country where the voices of female artists are always backed by a group of male musicians. For a short while they were joined by two men on percussion to create a collection of sounds befitting any magical moment. (It’s not surprising Erzsi has composed film soundtracks.)

I like Erzsi so much in these paired down, simple presentations without the band. I will be waiting for news of more of these shows Erzsi calls theatrical, performed with these three women. I admire, and respect, and like this female artist (who has a 20-year-old daughter) very much. Bravo!

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